Spanish Serenade (45 page)

The incident was not repeated. As Pilar stood and allowed herself to be sewn into the gown she would wear for her wedding, it seemed that it was her future that was being stitched up, and that she might never be able to breathe freely again.

Pilar was not the only, one who noticed Benita's distress over the wedding. Doña Luisa brought, up the subject when she joined Pilar later in the morning. “You seemed to have destroyed the little maid's dream world,” the widow said to her as she wandered out onto the balcony nibbling a piece of candy. “I just saw her scouring the table in the kitchen and using tears for soap.”

Pilar agreed as she stepped out onto the balcony behind her. “I feel terrible about her.”

“If I may say so, you don't look much happier than Benita.” The other woman's gaze was shrewd in its appraisal.

“I'm trying to catch my breath. Everything is happening so fast.”

“Yes, that is it, I'm sure. And you are not at all worried about Refugio.”

Pilar moved to the balcony railing. Over her shoulder she said, “Why should I be?”

“He made you a public proposal of marriage and you refused him. Aren't you curious to know how he accepted that affront?”

“He had his purpose for making it; I had mine for refusing. He is very good at deciphering the reasons people do things. I'm sure he understood.”

“Understanding and accepting are two different things. But I wonder if you don't misjudge Refugio? He may have a purpose for doing most things, yes, but the fact that his brain functions extremely well doesn't mean that he is incapable of feeling. He is an extraordinary man. I would think carefully before I sent him away.”

“Would you?” Pilar said with a great show of indifference.

“I would, though I would probably choose to marry Charro just the same, as you are doing.”

“Why would you say that?”

“He has the better prospects at the moment.”

“You are forgetting the emeralds, aren't you? I'm sure Enrique told you about them.”

Doña Luisa laughed. “So he did, how could I forget? It must be Enrique's good influence.”

Pilar turned to face the other woman, with her back against the balcony railing. “You admit it?”

“Oh, yes. Isn't it amusing?”

Pilar frowned. “You aren't just-playing with Enrique, are you?”

“He is not a man for that kind of thing,” the other woman said with a wry smile. “Oh, he's droll and funny and tolerant beyond most, but he has high standards and a quick temper. He keeps these standards for himself as well as for me. I find that endearing.”

“I see,” Pilar said slowly.

Doña Luisa laughed. “I don't suppose you do, but it doesn't matter since I am happy.”

“What of your husband's estate? Will you go back to claim it?”

“No!” The widow shuddered, adding, “No, not if the saints are kind. I never want to set foot on a ship or a horse again.”

“It's strange that you need never have left New Orleans, that you could have remained without harm from Don Esteban.”

“Strange, yes, but some things are meant to be.”

Pilar gave the other woman a long look. “But what of the money?”

“Enrique will see to it. He doesn't mind travel, and he will have the right as my husband to handle my affairs.”

“Your husband! But what of—” Pilar stopped, unwilling to put something that had only been a nebulous dread in her mind into words.

“Refugio?” The widow gave a comfortable laugh. “He was kind on the ship. He saw how frightened I was of being alone, and how hurt at having been married to a man who only wanted to get an heir on my body while clinging to his mulatto mistress. Later, he ceased to be so kind. He had a reason, of course; he wanted me to turn to Enrique. He is diabolical, but also wise.”

Was it possible, Pilar wondered, that Refugio had wanted her to turn to Charro? Did he feel a compulsion to establish all his discarded women with someone else? She did not really think it could be true, but the chance was strong enough that she might be able to use it to help her forget.

“You will remain here, then?”

“Oh, yes, in spite of there being no fabled cities of gold. I suspected that was a trick, you know; I'm not stupid. But I also wanted to see if Refugio was right, if I was stronger inside than I knew. No one was more surprised than I to find it's so. The Apaches terrify me still, but I will be all right with Enrique beside me. When my husband's estate is settled, he and I will find a place where we can grow cattle and babies. I will become fat, and Enrique will not care.”

“And you will be content? You will never miss the court at Madrid?”

“Of course I shall miss it! And sometimes I will stamp my feet and cry for my old friends and the parties and fine clothes, and wonder why I ever buried myself in this wilderness. But I will always know that Enrique must live far away from Spain and the past. He will understand, and make me laugh, and it will pass.”

“You expect much of him.”

“Yes, and he will give me more. That's the way of it.”

“Charro will also be a good husband,” Pilar said, lifting her chin.

“Yes, probably. But will you make a good wife for him?”

That was, of course, the question. Pilar considered it with care after the other woman had gone. She would try, but would it be enough? It was late evening when Pilar heard the first strains of the guitar. She wanted to shut out the sound but she could not. The melody was the old Andalusian love song Refugio had played that night in Seville, and again on the ship. The sound went on and on, bringing images of fountains and lemon trees shining in the moonlight, and of other things she would as soon forget. And when she thought she could stand it no longer, he began to sing, the words and the tones soft and rich and incredibly poignant.

She moved from her bedchamber through the narrow doors and out onto the balcony. She could not see him among the scattered shadows of the courtyard below. Still, his voice rose in endless refrain.

There was no one else about for the moment. Charro had ridden out with his father to inspect a herd of cattle the Indian charros were gathering, and the two had not yet returned. Vicente, Enrique, and Baltasar had gone to witness a cockfight to be held at the nearest group of Indian jacales. The señora was overseeing the preparations for the evening meal, harrying the servants in the lower regions of a connecting side building. Doña Luisa was completing her toilette for the evening.

Pilar moved farther out onto the balcony, the better to see. She trailed her fingers along the railing as she walked along beside it to change her vantage point. The glow of light from candles left burning in generous display in Doña Luisa's room slid over her as she passed the widow's door, gleaming in the dark honey-gold of her hair, shimmering along the slender turns of her arms and throat, exposed by her evening dress. The night breeze, delicately scented with sage, rustled the grape leaves that fringed the balcony overhead. From some distance away came the lowing of cattle and the cries of the Indian children at their jacales beyond the courtyard. And through it all, like some haunting memory, ran the music Refugio made.

Pilar reached the end of the balcony where the grapevine grew, and turned in the other direction, aimlessly strolling. She had given tip on discovering Refugio's location below, since it seemed he did not want to be found. She wished Charro and the others would return, bringing their laughter and teasing to brighten the night. She wished the dinner bell would ring, though she knew well it would not for at least an hour. She wished that Doña Luisa would finish dressing and come and talk to her. She wished that Señora Huerta would find some task that needed her help. She longed for something to happen, anything to stop the music and the singing.

She reached her bedchamber again and stepped inside. Deliberately, she closed the narrow doors behind her. The music faded, dying away. She could no longer hear it.

Or had it really stopped? She stood listening for long moments, but could not quite tell. The walls of the house were thick and the balcony doors so solid.

She drew a deep breath, then closed her eyes and let it out slowly. Lifting a hand to rub the back of her neck, she moved farther into the room.

She busied herself, straightening away her few belongings. However, she was soon uncomfortable. The closed doors shut out the cooling breeze of the night, and there was still heat trapped in the room from the long hot day. It was silly of her to endure it merely because of a piece of music and her own irritated sensibilities.

Turning in a swirl of skirts, she moved back to the doors. She grasped the handles and pulled the solid panels open, letting the night air sweep inside.

With the wind came Refugio. He glided soundlessly around the doorframe and halted with his back to the open door panel that lay against the wall.

“Accommodating and endlessly hospitable,” he said, his voice resonant with warmth. “Will you also be loving?”

22

PILAR BACKED AWAY FROM Refugio. Almost afraid of the answer, she said, “What do you mean?”

“I am asking, in my own way of course, if I am welcome?”

“How can you think so, when I am to be married to Charro?”

“As a ploy to persuade Governor Pacheco to feel compassion for me, spurning my suit could hardly have been bettered. I would have foregone the aid, however, if it had allowed me to avoid the rack of it.”

“You hid your torment well.”

“Practice gives that facility.”

“Nevertheless, the decision was made, and I am to be married.”

“Then you intend to pledge fidelity?” he said in sardonic tones.

“Of course!”

“I did wonder.”

She lifted her chin as she caught his meaning. “You feel that I should have been faithful to you?”

“I had somehow expected it.” He shrugged. “I can't think why.”

“Nor can I, when you trusted me in nothing else.”

“You mean the emeralds,” he said in stark acceptance of the change of subject.

She turned away from him, pacing a few steps before swinging back again. “What else should I mean? You kept them from me, knowing full well what they meant to me. You hoarded them over all those long, weary miles, and never said a word. How could you?”

“And what they meant to me, what of that?” His gaze was intent upon her flushed face.

“What do they mean, indeed? The Carranza estates in Spain are gone forever. There might be a hacienda here in the Tejas country, cattle and horses and charros to follow your orders. But what do such things matter against the way you betrayed me?”

“Nothing and less than nothing,” he answered impatiently. “For me to have given you the emeralds would have put you in danger from Don Esteban the instant he discovered you had them. More than that, they were a way of keeping you with me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “If you intended to use them to bribe me into staying, then you have a strange idea of my character.”

“Not at all. As long as I had them, your legacy from your mother was safe from Don Esteban. But as long as you did not know it, you would not have the means to leave me.”

His features were defenseless as he waited for her answer. He stood perfectly still, leaning on his hands, which were pressed flat against the door behind him as if he would permit himself no gesture of appeal.

Pilar, watching him, felt his meaning penetrate to the center of her being. He had not wanted her to leave him. He had risked everything against the chance of keeping her.

Finally, she said, “You thought, when you came across the emeralds in New Orleans, that if you shared them with me, I would immediately abandon all of you and return to Spain?”

“Share?” he said, the word tentative.

“Naturally, I would not have taken them all. You had lost as much as I.”

His face tightened over the bones. “So generous. But still, you would have had what you came after. There would have been no way to hold you.”

“Must a woman be held by force or money, and never of her own desires? Can't she decide of her own will whether she will go or stay?”

“The temptation to use the means at hand is strong when the alternative is unbearable.”

It was, perhaps, an attempt at an explanation, or even justification; certainly it was not an apology. It came to her, fleetingly, that it might also be a declaration, though of what kind it was difficult to say. She had always known that he wanted her, though she had never felt before that, for him, the obstruction of his desire was something he would be unable to bear.